The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza has warned that breast cancer patients in Gaza face a “catastrophic health and humanitarian reality” that denies them basic medical care and their right to treatment.

In a press release, the ministry said that early detection and diagnosis services are now “extremely limited and practically non-existent” because of severe shortages and repeated breakdowns of mammography equipment, as well as a lack of laboratory solutions and supplies, stripping women of the chance for early diagnosis.

Breast cancer treatment in Gaza was almost completely devoid of approved protocols, with departments suffering critical shortages of chemotherapy drugs, hormonal therapies, and targeted treatments, it added.

According to the ministry, before Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, the coastal enclave recorded about 360 new breast cancer cases annually, a figure that dropped to 250 and 260 in 2024 and 2025 respectively.

“With the collapse of the early detection and diagnosis system, what is recorded in the registries does not necessarily reflect what is happening on the ground,” it said.

“Based on pre-war rates, it was expected that we would be dealing with more than a thousand new cases within about three years.”